The elderly, children and the poor already feeling the pain of
'cruel' cuts, public sector workers warn
13 September 2010
Meals-on-wheels, free fruit at school and social care services
for the elderly are hanging by a thread as councils up and down the
country brace themselves for the heftiest cuts in a generation,
according to Unite the union's public sector members.
The elderly, children and poorer people are already feeling the
pain of reduced local authority spending the workers will warn
David Cameron and Nick Clegg today (Monday).
The workers, who are employed in providing social services
across the UK's four nations, report that job and budget cuts are
already underway leaving many essential services so stretched they
simply will not be able to withstand the savage 25 per cent budget
reductions threatened in the coalition's autumn's Comprehensive
Spending Review.
One worker reports that on enquiring how elderly meal-on-wheels
users could get a hot evening meal was told they could "call a
takeaway".
So concerned are the union's public sector workers they have now
written to the prime minister and deputy prime minister reminding
them of their election pledges that cuts would be "fair" and that
the vulnerable would not pay the price for the financial
crisis.
In the letter, the workers point to the deterioration in
services already underway including:
- In East Ayrshire, where a three-year council tax freeze has
been in place, social services support is at risk as the jobs of
600 personal carers hang in the balance.
- In Glasgow, the free fruit programme in primary schools is at
risk. Breakfast clubs, fitness schemes and play schemes are also
threatened.
- In Knowlesly borough council, budget cuts mean that the meals
on wheels facility for the elderly has been privatised. In
Birmingham it is now unclear what provision there is for a hot
evening meal; when a colleague enquired what hot meal provision
would be in the evening was told by the contractor that the
pensioners could phone a local take-away.
- In Birmingham, child services are facing £13 million worth of
cuts; a staggering 1,500 jobs look set to disappear. The youth
support organisation, Connexions has been hard hit by cuts
already.
- In Cheshire and Warrington £1.7 million has been slashed from
the budget, leading to 75 redundancies so far. While in Birmingham
430 jobs are at risk.
- In Southampton, £4 million is to be cut from the budget with
the majority coming from children's services.
- In Northern Ireland, a much-valued summer play scheme for
children with special needs, only saved because the service users
and providers fought for it, faces an uncertain future.
- In Wales, one county council, Powys, has already announced
plans to cut 500 jobs. This local authority is the largest
employer in mid-Wales; there is no other alternative employer of
its size. With 6 per cent of the workforce to go, the remaining
services will be stretched to breaking point.
- In Hull, Hull Forward, an organisation designed to support and
encourage the city’s private sector economy, has been axed,
removing a mechanism which would help decrease the area's
dependency on public sector for employment.
- In Bristol, plans to build council houses for the first time in
a generation have been stalled. Instead of 72 homes, now only
12 are in the very early stages of going ahead.
- In Jersey, zero hours contracts are being introduced.
Workers will have to queue to find out if they have work that day,
taking an island which has more than adequate resources to deal
with the deficit right back to the desperate poverty of the
1930s.
The workers write:
"Service reductions of this nature are cruel in their impact on
those in greatest need. Vulnerable people pay most heavily if they
lose the services which are often the only thing standing between
them and despair. As their service providers, we cannot stand by
and permit this to happen.
"There is a better way. Nobody disputes that the deficit
must be addressed but many expert economists agree that the best
way to reduce the deficit is over a longer period.
"Cuts to vital services will increase inequality. Very
possibly, we will have the grotesque situation in this country
where those most in need are paying for a financial crisis not of
their making. This is a situation you have both said would
not be justified.
"Your promise to the electorate was that cuts would be ’fair‘,
that they would not damage services and that the most vulnerable
would not suffer. We ask that your government abides by its
promise, especially to those for whom this country, still the fifth
richest in the world must care - the elderly, those with
disabilities, children and families.
"Please instruct your chancellor and departments to remember
their duty of care to all in society."
ENDS
For further information, please contact Pauline Doyle on 07976
832 861 or Shaun Noble on 07768 693 940
Download a copy of the letter.
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